RE: [dita-sidsc] Recent DITA tool interoperability problem

["JoAnn Hackos" <joann.hackos@comtech-serv.com>]

Hi Bob,

We run into the same problems with the XML editors all the time. Most of
the vendors put proprietary code into the files that makes them
difficult to use in competitive editors. We even have cases in which the
vendor uses ditabase but labels the items in their "open" file as
concept, task, and reference. You get the wrong topic type.

 

We recently tried opening the Service Manual DTD from Arbortext in
XMLSpy so that we could better understand the DTD. XMLSpy would not
display the DTD in its graphic form because it claimed that the DTD was
not valid. I don't know if XMLSpy's assertion is correct but it makes it
difficult.

 

Thank you for bringing this issue to the attention of the Adoption TC.
It may be closer to the "compliance" issue and certification to the DITA
standard than purely adoption, but it is definitely an issue. I brought
this very problem to the attention of the DITA TC at Tuesday's meeting. 

 

I will bring the issue to the attention of the Adoption TC for
discussion. We're trying to define our scope at this point and set up a
roadmap for future work. All these issues brought to our attention
really do help.

 

Best,

JoAnn

 

JoAnn T. Hackos, PhD
President
Comtech Services, Inc.
710 Kipling Street, Suite 400
Denver, CO 80215
303-232-7586
joann.hackos@comtech-serv.com
joannhackos Skype

www.comtech-serv.com

________________________________

From: Beims Bob [mailto:bob.beims@freescale.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2008 1:32 PM
To: dita-adoption-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
Cc: Semiconductor Information Design Subcommittee
Subject: [dita-sidsc] Recent DITA tool interoperability problem

 

DITA Adoption TC;

We've recently experienced a situation in the DITA TC Semiconductor
Information Design Subcommittee (SIDSC) that I wanted to pass along to
you. It represents a scenario that mitigates against easy adoption of
DITA, and thus presents an opportunity for some sort of best practices
training to avoid it.

Here's the scenario:

1.	I created a template for meeting minutes, using the Syntext
Serna editor and posted it to the SC documents repository (see
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/dita-sidsc/document.php?doc
ument_id=28347). I used the base information type of "topic" for the
template.
2.	The template was downloaded by one of the SC members so that she
could use FrameMaker 8 to capture minutes from a teleconference.
3.	FrameMaker 8 told her that the file is not valid.
4.	When this issue was raised during the next SC teleconference, I
downloaded the file and opened it with oXygen 9.3 to check it, and was
told by that editor that the file is valid.
5.	As I was doing that, another member of the SC fiddled with the
file using some other editor, and found that by removing the
<related-links> stuff, the file would open in FrameMaker 7.2.

Hmmm... this scenario says that interoperability via an open standard
may not be as easy as we'd hoped. Here we've got four different
DITA-compliant editors that disagree on the validity of a DITA file.

 

Your thoughts?

Respectfully,
Bob Beims

Chair, OASIS DITA TC SIDSC

Applications Engineer, Staff Principal
Microcontroller Solutions Group
Freescale Semiconductor, Inc.

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